Music breaking barriers

DEATH COURIER – Perimortem

DEATH COURIER is a 3-piece death/thrash band from Patra (Greece), formed in 1987, and one of the first death metal bands to have ever emerged from the country, still following the DIY ethics to this day. What we have here is the release of the band’s new full-lenght album, twenty years after the release of their debut “Demise” LP, presenting a collection of songs that count something more than fifteen years in the vault awaiting to be unleashed.

DEATH COURIER greet us with a short yet terrifying intro, just before the band kicks in with all the madness and wrath that one who uses one of H.P. Lovecraft’ works of literature as reference, should have. The above sentence is attributed to one of Lovecraft’s poems, ‘Nemesis’, fragments of which are featured in the first lines of ‘Feeding the Abyss’, an abysmal song indeed and a great introduction to the pathways the band follows in ‘Perimortem’ which spread beyond darkness and horror. The music itself alternates from full-blown punishing riffs to traditional tremolo-picked arpeggios and neckbreaking bridges ( with ‘Mindwarp’, ‘Devour the Moments’ or ‘Spontaneous Human Combustion’ being just a few examples of that). Such sections are often complimented by distinctive melodies or certain lead parts, that along with the ominous samples some songs are embellised with, apply an atmospheric element the band wants to present and preserve but only to its barebones. The music is combined by a mix of cognate music genres such as death metal, grind or even thrash thus creating a farrago that overflows with paranoia and aggressiveness. Bill’s accomplished songwriting capabilities and fierce barks and grunts are skillfully backed up by Stathis Kotsoris’ incredibly tight drumming which is deafeningly powerful and pervading. What is more, apart from ‘Perimortem’s exceptional production, another strong point of the album is its effectiveness and immediacy. The songs are so well-worked, although not particularly varied, and despite the album’s short duration, that remotely exceeds the 20 minutes in lengh, it leaves the listener with the feeling of fulfillment, without getting tiresome. The songs seem complete despite their short stretch and the whole album is just like a force that kills and runs, making one want to hit repeat continuously. ‘Perimortem’ has been molded into a veritable killing machine, one that you would love to cross paths with.